How Miles Teller learned to fake drum like a pro in ‘Whiplash’ | New York Post How Miles Teller learned to fake drum like a pro in ‘Whiplash’ Comment(required) October 4, 2014 | 12:50pm So much can be accomplished though movie magic. Men can be made to fly and, through a technological breakthrough known as an “apple box,” Tom Cruise can be made to look almost as tall as his female co-star. Miles Teller as Andrew and J.K. Simmons as Terence Fletcher.Sony Pictures One skill no amount of special effects can help with is an actor’s ability to convincingly play a musical instrument. Teller worked with his instructor and co-star, Nate Lang, right, three to four hours a day for two months.Sony Pictures This challenge is particularly daunting when your entire movie revolves around playing an instrument — in the case of Friday’s “Whiplash,” the drums. If those scenes don’t look good, the movie runs the risk of being associated with another musical instrument: a gong. “Whiplash” stars Miles Teller as a jazz student at a competitive New York music conservatory.

He longs to play the skins as well as his idol Buddy Rich, but his biggest challenge is coping with his abusive instructor, Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons in a performance that’s earning Oscar buzz). Fletcher verbally abuses his students and forces them to play until blood from their hands splashes across the kit. No blood was spilt to ensure the music scenes were accurate — but it almost was. Compared with other instruments, it’s much more difficult to fake playing the drums. Unlike piano, for example, where an actor’s hands can be hidden from the camera, drumming can’t be cheated. If an actor is out of time, the audience will know. When the actor strikes the cymbal, the audience will know. Neither Tara Reid in “Josie and the Pussycats,” Lou Diamond Philips in “La Bama,” and Tia Carrere in “Wayne’s World,” could deliver a convincing performance with their character’s musical instruments.Everett Collection (3) Go watch Tara Reid behind the kit in “Josie and the Pussycats” and you’ll immediately understand why the camera never lingers on her for more than a second or two.

Reid once reported that her instructor, upon seeing her play for the first time, told her, “This is not going to happen.” And it’s not just drumming. Watch Tia Carrere pretend to play bass in “Wayne’s World.” Her left hand stays frozen on the neck and her right fingers flick listlessly in the neighborhood of the strings. Lou Diamond Phillips doesn’t do much better as guitar great Ritchie Valens in “La Bamba,” and equally hilarious is Chow Yun-Fat pretending to smoothly blow the clarinet in “Hard Boiled.” To get the drumming right in “Whiplash,” writer-director Damien Chazelle (himself a drummer) had the novel idea to hire a real musician. Nate Lang, an actor and a member of the New York band the Howlin’ Souls, plays Teller’s rival, Carl. Teller taught himself to play the drums when he was 15, but favored rock ‘n roll, and had to learn the jazz technique.Sony Pictures “Everything has to look correct, especially with jazz drumming, which is a very technical, graceful kind of drumming,” Lang says.

Lang, who worked for years with Chelsea’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, was also tasked with training Teller. Lang has been playing drums since he was a small child and had taken lessons over the years. Jimmy Macbride, a local jazz drummer and recent Julliard grad, watched the trailer and believed the drumming looked pretty real.Sony Pictures Teller taught himself to play drums when he was 15, but favored rock ’n’ roll. Lang’s first job was to change Teller’s grip from what’s called “matched,” in which both hands hold the sticks the same way, to “traditional,” a grip used by jazz drummers in which the left hand holds the stick a bit sideways, almost like a chopstick. The duo spent about two months working three to four hours a day in an LA rehearsal space. By the end, they began perfecting the songs from the film: “Whiplash” by Hank Levy and Duke Ellington’s “Caravan.” The work paid off. “I think [the drumming] seemed pretty real,” says Jimmy Macbride, a local jazz drummer and a recent Juilliard grad who watched the trailer.

“Usually they’re not really good about that in movies.” To make the drumming appear real enough to pass with Macbride and other musicians, Lang practiced the songs in the movie to the point where they became second nature. “I got to the point where if I hear ‘Whiplash,’ I have flashbacks, I’ve played it so much,” Lang says. “I have to get down on my hands and knees for a few seconds.” Share this: Lang Lang - Lang Lang: Dragon Songs (Plus DVD) - Amazon.com Music Editorial Reviews Product Description Lang Lang has fascinated audiences all over the globe--now he takes them home to show them "his" China with Dragon Songs, a CD+DVD set with Chinese piano solo, chamber, and orchestral music. Discover the musical culture that forged one of the most acclaimed classical musicians of our day. The CD juxtaposes the Yellow River Concerto, a large-scale, highly virtuosic piano concerto with colorful sound scales, with miniature pieces for solo piano and with chamber pieces that combine the piano with traditional Chinese instruments. Most of the pieces merge tradional Chinese melodies and idioms with the Western classical music--the result is music of astonishing beauty and ease that will strongly appeal to a broad audience.

The 130-minute DVD features a full-length documentary offering a fascinating and intimate look behind the scenes of Lang Lang's latest China tour. The DVD also includes a concert of the solo piano and chamber music pieces from the CD filmed during the Dragon Songs recording sessions in Beijing. Amazon.com This is music of great diversity and charm. Lang Lang returns here to his native China for solo, chamber, and orchestral music. Those expecting great exoticisms will not find them here. We are all aware of how the East influenced the West in music  Debussy, Ravel, and other composers have picked up the harmonies and sonorities and made them familiar to us. But the music recorded here, all of it composed in the 20th century, is indebted to Western music, and indeed, there is hardly a jarring note to be found. The "exoticisms" are all comfortable. The "Yellow River" Piano Concerto, a work arranged by four composers in 1969 based on a 30-year-old choral cantata that was made up of socialist songs of praise, is a piece of pure late Romanticism and is reminiscent of Tchaikovsky and other late Romantics.

One solo piano piece is 97 seconds of pure virtuosic joy ("Happy Times," by Zhu Jianer), and another ("Dance of Spring" by Sun Yiqiang) is a delicate, almost French Impressionist piece. The "Dance from Qiuci" by Zhao Jiping is a duet for piano and guanzi, a double-reed pipe, that will remind listeners of Klezmer music. Each track offers a new delight. Lang Lang's performances, alone and with orchestra and others, are brilliant. A must-have. --Robert Levine Lang Lang: piano star the critics love to hate - Telegraph Lang Lang: piano star the critics love to hate Jasper Rees 12:01AM GMT 10 Nov 2008 Lang Lang is a hero in China and a box-office wonder in the West. So why are reviews so harsh? He talks to Jasper Rees. Is Lang Lang a good thing? When he first sprouted as a teenage prodigy, he was greeted as a forerunner of China's musical miracle.

The glowing tributes stacked up, the recordings flowed (next up: a new Chopin CD), the concert schedule mounted and he became a phenomenon - a classical musician who provoked the adulation normally associated with a rock star. The most recent visit of the Lang Lang circus to these shores was at the Proms, where for two hours one Sunday afternoon he recited everything from Mozart to traditional Chinese melodies. Only Brendel and Kissin, he is proud to note, have ever enjoyed the same compliment at the Albert Hall. The reviews were almost universally withering. Too wide-ranging a programme, they growled. Too much eye-popping showmanship. Not enough care. Not enough sensitivity. But the audience seemed to have a good time. Lang Lang has become one of those artists whose career prospers outside the boundaries of critical approval. Still only 26, he is bemused by the backlash. "You get many good reviews from the beginning," he says, "and then the critics start criticising you. It's strange. The things they liked you for first - unique, fresh - they say is great. And then later they say you're too fresh, too unique.

But they're the same thing!" Telegraph Music homepage This is the only sign of exasperation when we meet at the London premises of Steinway. Lang Lang exudes an air of entitlement. His roadshow is never-ending. Only last weekend he was playing Beethoven's First Piano Concerto at the Lincoln Centre with the New York Philharmonic. In April he returns to London for a series of concerts at the Barbican and St Luke's, two of them featuring the Chinese music he does his bit to promote. "I have some responsibility, of course. I find many of the pieces are really good. But if the work is bad there's nothing you can do. I love football, but the Chinese football team is useless." He will also hold a masterclass which will culminate in a performance of Schubert's Marche Militaire for 100 pianists. Somehow you can't see Martha Argerich accepting that booking. It's possible, however, that the outsize performance style is not entirely of his own making. It could be partly attributable to his roots in Shenyang in north-east China. "In general, people from the north-east talk very loud and are not very behaving," he says.

"For art it's good because they are not afraid of anything. Crazy people. Many of the comedy hosts come from there." The lionisation of Lang Lang is at its most marked in China. Where classical music was off limits during the Cultural Revolution, there are now 30 million piano pupils; at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony Lang Lang had a solo spot. The swing of the barometer sometimes baffles even Lang Lang himself. "Young kids think piano is pretty cool stuff. You see many parents come to concerts with the kid and sometimes the kid was really excited and the parents were [he makes a snoring sound]. I saw this when I am playing. The kids don't feel Mozart is that old. So that certainly helps. I must say these kids are crazy. I just had a few days in Shanghai and all these kids start saying, 'I want to study with you.' And they're four or five years old! Those kids are groupies already." There is something of the child still in China's Pied Pianist.

His affinity with children - at the Albert Hall and elsewhere he has duetted with the Chinese-American infant phenomenon Marc Yu - may stem from the fact that he waved goodbye to a normal childhood when he won a piano competition playing Liszt and Mozart at five. When Lang Lang first performed Chopin's F minor piano concerto - it was his debut with an orchestra - he noted its mood of exquisite yearning but, being 13, had nothing to relate it to. So his father told him to think of his mother. His mother had been left behind in Shenyang when his father took him to study in Beijing, and then America. Though he has performed the E minor "at least 40 times", Chopin's concertos are hardly the most vaunted in the repertoire - the orchestrations are often described as perfunctory. But to Lang Lang they are "like a simple operatic orchestration. It's certainly not like Brahms, which is almost like a symphony. But it's hard to find the right sound. They are probably the most lyric and sensitive concertos. The melodic line is so pretty. Even if they don't like classical music, everybody likes Chopin's melody.

He is one of very few composers who made the piano really sing." The analogy recasts Lang Lang as a bel canto tenor who has somehow missed his vocation. It would explain a lot, including why he likes working in supergroup couplings with singers. A Leoncavallo CD with Domingo ("kind of high-level elevator music") is coming soon, and a recording with Cecilia Bartoli is planned. "I love to work with singers because you learn so much. Every note has a meaning. It helps me to understand the phrasing and also the expression in the music. Bartoli is my favourite singer in the world today. Very few open up your heart. When she comes to the stage she's like a sun. The whole room is sparkling with stars." Is it any wonder that Lang Lang wanted to take his place at the Beijing opening ceremony? He had a foretaste of the sort of glitzy spectacle that gives his detractors indigestion when, a year before the Games, he donned red tails to play the Yellow River Concerto in a bombastic outdoor concert. Then in January he opened Beijing's miraculous new concert hall (which "is very nice but outside is better, like a big UFO landed").

For all the accolade of these bookings, he was still terrified that he would be bypassed for the Olympics. "I was afraid that my part would be cut out because it's so focused on Chinese instruments and Chinese culture. Thank God it was still in. I loved it. Especially the piano is in the middle of the Bird's Nest. Unbelievable. I still get excited just to talk about that." Lang Lang's recording of the Chopin piano concertos is released on Universal on Nov 17. Lang Lang Piano Academy Lang Lang Piano Academy Lang Lang Piano Academy The Lang Lang Piano Academy is a partnership venture between Faber Music and superstar pianist Lang Lang , launched in September 2014. It encompasses a range of resources – printed books and digital products - for pianists of all levels, from beginners to advanced players, through which Lang Lang shares his passion for the piano. Generally regarded as the world’s most successful concert pianist, Lang Lang’s extraordinary talent and charisma has inspired millions to take up the piano. In China alone, ‘the Lang Lang effect’ is credited with encouraging over 40 million children to learn the piano. “The piano is my passion.

Through the Lang Lang Piano Academy I hope to inspire today's kids to explore the piano and celebrate the wonderful world of music. There are no short cuts to learning the piano and playing it well, but the journey along the way should be imaginative and rewarding as well as challenging.” Lang Lang, 2014 The Lang Lang Piano Academy currently comprises of: mastering the piano – a five-book series and app for iPad on piano technique that captures Lang Lang’s passion, drive and extraordinary mastery of the piano; and The Lang Lang Piano Method – five progressive books with online audio that provide a unique and imaginative way for complete beginners to learn the piano with Lang Lang. THE LANG LANG PIANO METHOD (**NEW** March 2016) The Lang Lang Piano Method is the next step in the Lang Lang Piano Academy, providing a unique and imaginative way for complete beginners to learn the piano. Lang Lang’s experience and expertise are distilled throughout the books, encouraging performance skills and self-expression right from the start. A cartoon Lang Lang brings the books and his own voice to life, taking young pianists step by step through each section. The books develop the right and left hands equally, enabling children to play concert pieces early on in the learning process and establishing good dexterity.

Musicianship is developed through theory pages and listening to Lang Lang playing piano classics for children. “I’ve written The Lang Lang Piano Method to inspire today’s kids with my passion for the piano. Learning an instrument can be a really important part of a child’s development and a great way to improve many things like concentration and focus. Learning needs to be enjoyable as well and I’m sure kids will make good progress and be inspired to keep going with this series.” Lang Lang MASTERING THE PIANO (First published September 2014) Mastering the piano was the first series of books launched in the Lang Lang Piano Academy. Comprising five progressive books, mastering the piano captures Lang Lang’s passion, drive and extraordinary mastery of the piano. Each book gives students the chance to learn from this exceptional talent who has impressed the world, through 8 units that develop key aspects of piano technique. "I’ve created the mastering the piano series with my partner Faber Music to get today’s kids really enthused about playing the piano: to inspire them to perform with love, energy and commitment. This series captures my own passion for piano playing and shares my artistic values and technical insights with the next generation of pianists.

There are no shortcuts to becoming a pianist: good playing can only be achieved through good work. These books set out to give players the advice, resources and the desire to reach this goal. I explore key aspects of piano technique and offer advice and suggestions on the challenges encountered. The books are not tutors. Pick and choose what you would like to focus on depending on your own individual needs and tackle the units in an order that suits you. To me, the piano is like a musical world – it takes me to a place beyond reality. You, too, will find that it extends your mind, heart, creativity and communication skills. You don’t need a concert hall; you don’t need a big grand piano: any piano is enough – and the world will be yours to embrace." Lang Lang MASTERING THE PIANO WITH LANG LANG APP (Launched September 2015) Pioneered by Faber Music and powered by Tido, mastering the piano with Lang Lang App for iOS iPad is an inspired approach to learning piano technique for the developing pianist.

Created to encourage the next generation of piano players, the App runs in parallel with the mastering the piano series, and explores key piano techniques over five levels through interactive sheet music, practice tools, exclusive content, musical context, video tutorials and recordings. Download from the iTunes Store here Biography | Lang Lang Lang Lang Biography Biography If one word applies to Lang Lang, to the musician, to the man, to his worldview, to those who come into contact with him, it is “inspiration”. It resounds like a musical motif through his life and career. If one word applies to Lang Lang, to the musician, to the man, to his worldview, to those who come into contact with him, it is “inspiration”. It resounds like a musical motif through his life and career.

He inspires millions with his open-hearted, emotive playing, whether it be in intimate recitals or on the grandest of stages – such as the 2014 World Cup concert in Rio, with Placido Domingo, to celebrate the final game; the 56th and 57th GRAMMY Award two years in a row, where he performed with Metallica and Pharrell Williams; the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where more than four billion people around the world viewed his performance; the Last Night of the Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall, or the Liszt 200th birthday concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Charles Dutoit which was broadcast live in more than 300 movie theaters around the United States and 200 cinemas across Europe (the first classical music cinema cast to be headlined by a solo artist).

He forms enduring musical partnerships with the world’s greatest artists, from conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel and Sir Simon Rattle, to artists from outside of classical music – among them dubstep dancer Marquese “nonstop” Scott, king of the crooners Julio Inglesias and jazz titan Herbie Hancock. He even builds relationships with corporations who will help him get classical music to ever-more people - And he builds cultural bridges between East and West, frequently introducing Chinese music to Western audiences, and vice versa. Yet he never forgets what first inspired, and continues to inspire him. Great artists, above all the great composers – Liszt, Chopin and the others – whose music he now delights in bringing to others. Even that famous old Tom and Jerry cartoon “The Cat Concerto” which introduced him, as a delighted child, to the music of Liszt – and that childlike excitement at the discovery of music now surely stays with him and propels him to what he calls “his second career”, bringing music into the lives of children around the world, both through his work for the United Nations and through his own Lang Lang International Music Foundation.

It takes a special kind of dedication to come from a small Chinese town Shenyang , to travel to the big city as a small child and to win the attention of the country’s finest music professors. And then to leave behind your home country altogether to join the world-famous Curtis Institute of Music Philadelphia, USA. Lang Lang achieved all of these early on – he started playing piano aged three, won the Shenyang Competition and gave his first public recital by the time he was five, entered Beijing’s Central Music Conservatory aged nine, won first prize at the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians’ Competition and playing the complete Chopin Etudes at the Beijing Concert Hall at 13. He left for America, Curtis and the great piano teacher Gary Graffman and when his moment came, he was ready. That moment happened when, aged 17, he was called upon to make a dramatic last-minute substitution for the famous Andre Watts to perform in the “Gala Of The Century”, playing a Tchaikovsky concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It made him what journalists like to call an “overnight star” and the world’s finest concert halls quickly beckoned.

Today, his resume reads like a bestseller (and indeed his auto biography, Journey of a Thousand Miles, has been published by Random House in eleven languages, and was released to critical acclaim – and as part of his commitment to the education of children, he released a version specifically for younger readers, entitled Playing with Flying Keys). He has been heralded as the “hottest artist on the classical music planet” by the New York Times, has played sold out concerts in every major city in the world and is the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic orchestras. Time Magazine has included Lang Lang in the “Time 100”, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, naming him as a symbol of the youth of China, and its future. Lang Lang is the cultural ambassador of the cities of Shenzhen and Shenyang.

And if the Chinese passion for piano isn’t solely due to him, he has played no small part as a role model to encourage more than 40 million Chinese children to learn to play the instrument – a phenomenon coined by The Today Show as "the Lang Lang effect." Steinway Pianos, for the first time in their century-and-a-half-long history, named a piano model after a single artist when they introduced “The Lang Lang Piano” to China. That piano, specially designed for early music education, is now on its fifth iteration. And the child Lang Lang was and who, perhaps, is always with him, would surely have approved of the way he gives back to children around the world. His volunteer activities include mentoring rising young talented pianists, convening 100 piano students at a time in concert, performing for sick children in hospi­tals, delivering classical music recitals in underserved and remote communities, and donating his musical talents to raise awareness of other charitable causes. These charitable efforts have led to the launch of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, with its goals of cultivating tomorrow’s top pianists, championing music education at the forefront of technology, and building a young audience through live music experiences.

The Financial Times described Lang Lang as “evangelical in his efforts to spread the popularity of classical music.” And in May 2009, Lang Lang and three chosen young scholars from the foundation – aged between 6 and 10 years old – performed together on The Oprah Winfrey Show on "Oprah's Search for the World's Most Smartest and Most Talented Kids." In 2011, Lang Lang Music World was launched, a multi-functioning arts complex located in Shenzhen and Chongqing, China, where children can go to receive piano education, participate in master classes and competitions, attend concerts and purchase educational products. Lang Lang himself continues to give master classes regularly throughout the world at the invitation of the most prestigious music institutions, including the Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music and Hanover Conservatory, as well as all the top conservatories in China where he holds honorary professorships. Elite universities such as Oxford, Harvard and Columbia have invited him to give talks.

Lang Lang enjoys reaching audiences of all sizes and few come bigger than that of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, of which Lang Lang was the first official Ambassador – a role, created by YouTube and Google that combined two of his great loves, music and outreach through technology. More traditionally, tens of thousands of people have enjoyed Lang Lang’s performances in open-air concerts in parks and venues around the globe, including Central Park in New York City, Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Ravinia Festival in Chicago, Theaterplatz in Dresden and Derby Park in Hamburg. Lang Lang participated in the opening concert at Munich's Olympic Stadium with Mariss Jansons, marking the commencement of the World Cup Games. In celebratory concerts for the closing of 2008 Euro Cup finals, Lang Lang played with the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Zubin Mehta in front of Schönbrunn Palace. And he marked the New Year’s Eve gala opening of the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing with another great conductor, Seiji Ozawa. In December 2007, Lang Lang was guest soloist at the Nobel Prize concert in Stockholm, an event attended by Nobel Laureates and members of the Royal Family.

He performed as soloist in Oslo for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony and concert for President Barack Obama. Lang Lang has made numerous TV appearances, including The Today Show, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Good Morning America, CBS Early Show, 60 Minutes, Wetten Dass and El Número Uno among many others. He has been featured on every major TV network and in news and lifestyle magazines worldwide, including such diverse publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Vogue, The Times, Financial Times, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Die Welt, Reader’s Digest and People. As well as President Obama, Lang Lang has performed for numerous international dignitaries including the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, President Xi Jin-Ping and former President Hu Jin-Tao of China, President Horst Koehler of Germany, H.R.H. Prince Charles, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, President Francois Hollande, Queen Beatrix and King Majesty King Willem-Alexander and Poland President Lech Kaczynski.

Of many landmark events, he was honored to perform for President Barack Obama and former President Hu Jin-Tao at the White House State Dinner, as well as at the Diamond Jubilee celebratory concert for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. Wherever he can, Lang Lang tries to give back. In 2013, he was designated by the Secretary General of the United Nations as a Messenger of Peace focusing on global education. Lang Lang has contributed and worked to raise funds and awareness for earthquake relief efforts in China and Haiti. These efforts included auctioning the red Steinway piano played during his 2008 New York Central Park concert, donating the net proceeds to the American Red Cross China Earthquake fund, and organizing a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall, donating the net proceeds to UNICEF’s Earthquake Relief Fund in Haiti. He also currently serves on the Weill Music Institute Advisory Committee as part of Carnegie Hall’s educational program and is the youngest member of Carnegie Hall’s Artistic Advisory Board.

In 2015, he played on the UN Day concert to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations, and performed a festive outdoor concert to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the City of Havana’s founding; he donated his service as a gift to the people of Havana. Honors include being added as one of the 250 Young Global Leaders picked by the World Economic Forum and receiving the 2010 Crystal Award in Davos. In May 2011, Lang Lang received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales at the Royal College of Music, and received his second Honorary Doctorate in Musical Arts at the Manhattan School of Music in May 2012. Most recently he received Honorary Doctor Degree in Fine Arts from New York University. In December 2011, he was honored the highest prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China. He also holds Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Birmingham City University and China Central Conservatory (first in the school’s 75 year history).

More recently, he has received the highest German civilian honor, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, in recognition of his distinguished services to music and, in January 2013, he was presented with the Medal of the Order of Arts and Letters, by the French Minister of Culture. In 2014, he received the Ondas Award in Spain and Bambi Award in Germany. In 2015, he became the first ever Ambassador of the Château de Versailles in Paris. He is one of the world’s most prolific and highest-profile recording artists. Featured soloist on the Golden Globe® winning score for the film The Painted Veil, composed by Alexandre Desplat, he can also be heard on the soundtracks of The Banquet, composed by Tan Dun, and of My Week With Marilyn. All of his albums have entered the top classical charts as well as many pop charts around the globe. In 2007, he was nominated for a Grammy® Award, becoming the first Chinese artist to be nominated for Best Instrumental Soloist.

In February 2010, Lang Lang joined Sony Music Entertainment as an exclusive recording artist; his first album with Sony featured a live recording of his 2010 recital at Vienna’s legendary Musikverein (including a segment filmed in 3D). His next CD, “Liszt, My Piano Hero” and DVD “Liszt, Now!” celebrated the 200th Anniversary of the great composer, while 2012 saw the release of “The Chopin Album”, 2013 a recording with Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker of two masterpiece piano concertos of the 20th century, Prokofiev No.3 and Bartok 2, and 2014 an album devotes to the world’s favorite composer Mozart, his recently released an album entitled “Lang Lang in Paris” features Tchaikovsky’s Seasons and 4 Chopin Scherzos. BBC - Culture - Why piano-mania grips China’s children Classical music Why piano-mania grips China’s children In Mao’s China, pianos were destroyed as despised symbols of the bourgeoisie – but now an estimated 40m children are learning the instrument. What has changed?

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore investigates. By Clarissa Sebag Montefiore 21 October 2014 Keng Zhou holds a prestigious position as dean of the International Piano Academy at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. But he first learnt to play in 1973 not on a gleaming grand piano but on an instrument’s battered remains. The legs had been sawn off for fuel and its cover removed to create a makeshift table. For years in Mao’s China, Western classical music was viewed suspiciously as a tool of imperialism and the piano a despised instrument of the bourgeoisie. Like many intellectuals of the era, Keng’s father – a pastor who was given his piano by an American – was sent to the countryside to perform back-breaking work with the peasants. When he returned to the city he wanted to bring music back into his children’s lives. “My father said it is better to learn one instrument: my sister took vocal lessons, my father took violin lessons, and I took the piano,” remembers Keng, now 51. There was just one problem: during the Cultural Revolution many Western scores had been destroyed. Unperturbed, Keng’s father borrowed some surviving sheets from a friend.

“He copied them by hand – one piece took him a week to do.” Four decades later and times have changed. Today China is experiencing piano frenzy with an estimated 40m children now learning to play. The instrument is increasingly in vogue among China’s burgeoning middle classes, who have the money to splurge on steep lessons and expensive fixtures. Spurring them on is the phenomenal success of the Chinese superstar concert pianists Lang Lang and Li Yundi, the latter of whom is currently on a 30-city sell-out tour of his homeland. Tickets for the Beijing leg were snapped up within minutes. “So many parents say: ‘I didn’t have a chance to play but my kids need to play piano,’” observes Keng. “Now it is easier for people – now you just need to be able to afford it.” While the European market for pianos is shrinking, China’s is booming. It is now both the world’s largest piano producer and consumer, with the country accounting for 76.9% of the global piano output in 2012 alone, according to market analysts ResearchMoz. But China is not just making pianos. It is also buying them.

For many owning a Steinway, the Rolls-Royce of pianos, is a status symbol. Displaying a grand piano in the living room projects not only culture and learning but also wealth: only the largest homes can accommodate them. Prices can also veer into the extreme. Last year a commemorative edition Steinway grand piano, named Charm of the Dragon, sold for 6.9m RMB ($1.1m). “I have seen show homes with grand white pianos,” says Wray Armstrong, CEO of the Beijing-based Armstrong International Music and Arts Enterprises Ltd. “It certainly looks good [but] it was strictly for show.” Keys to success At the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where tuition costs per year run into the tens of thousands of Renminbi, classical music wafts down the corridor on a balmy autumn evening. It is seven in the evening on a weekday but most of the practice rooms are full. Wang Ming Gang, a shy 21-year-old student, practices the piano here for up to four hours every day. With a businessman father and a mother who works in the civil service, Wang’s parents are wealthy enough to help support his dream of becoming a musician.

Originally from eastern Shandong province, Wang’s parents sent him to Shanghai because it is seen as both a financial and cultural centre. He considers himself lucky. “My friends from my hometown will not choose to study piano,” says Wang. “It is very expensive. Economic pressure is key. Another reason is that playing piano is not easy – it is not like you study two or three years and you become famous. My parents didn’t give me any pressure, this road is my own choice.” That is not the case for Su Fan, a 25-year-old postgraduate piano student from the southern boomtown of Guangzhou who has been playing for over a decade. “My parents encouraged me to study because the piano was a dream of my mother since she was very young. But she didn’t have the chance to study,” says Su, speaking at the Conservatory. “My grandfather forced his daughter to study science. At that time people thought that by learning science you could get a good job.” Su, who sports a gelled fringe, square hipster glasses, and a pink T-shirt, has ambitions to be a piano teacher. It is, he admits, “not a wealthy job”.

But he wants to further the pursuit of the piano in China: “I want to teach more students to know the piano. To spread my musical dreams and ideas.” To facilitate this Su works part time as a teacher, where he charges students up to 300RMB ($49) for 45 minutes. Over the past seven years he has seen an explosion in the number of students he tutors: from just a couple when he started to more than 30 per week today. He now has so many he often turns them away. Practice makes perfect? Despite this, Su believes the piano is far from established. “Most of the students are from wealthy or middle-class families. Even though China has progressed economically, most families [still] only think about the high price of rice, the high price of social welfare,” he muses. “It needs generations of hard work. Quality development needs accumulation. It cannot happen overnight.” “The piano might have been seen by many as a route out, as a way to college, as a way to the US, even as a way to get to Beijing from the countryside. As a way to a better place in society,” Armstrong adds.

Success stories such as Lang Lang’s have proved an inspiration for pushy parents keen to add to their children’s resume. The piano prodigy learnt to play while living in relative poverty in Beijing; he grew up in a rented room, sharing a toilet and sink with five other families. Today Lang Lang has an international rock’n’roll lifestyle and has performed for dignitaries including President Obama at the White House. In spite of its popularity other challenges for the piano persist. Scandals involving bribery and corruption have plagued some of China’s conservatories of music. Demand is also growing too fast with many less accomplished teachers unable to keep up, according to Keng. And critics of China’s teaching methods say they place too much emphasis on rote learning with little room for creativity. “The Chinese want to force their kids to practice piano,” says Keng. “It is too old a method. It needs to be more about enjoying playing the piano. For most students it will kill your hobby and kill your enjoyment.” Still, Keng believes that classical music in China has come a long way from when he was a child learning keys on a broken piano. “I think it is a very great, very bright future.

Before [parents] wanted their kids to become Lang Lang or Yundi, to become a superstar. Parents have started to change this idea. Now they want their kids to just know classical music and to have the piano accompany their whole life. I hope more and more kids can love to play from their hearts.” If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter . Extinction beckons for piano shops in US as children lose interest - Classic FM Classic FM Extinction beckons for piano shops in US as children lose interest 5 January 2015, 17:19 The continued decline in piano sales in the United States means shops selling the instrument are becoming a rare site. In 1909 in the US, over 364,500 were sold. Today, the number is only between 30,000 and 40,000 each year. In an article by Associated Press, Boston-based piano technician Larry Fine suggested the decline was partly down to new technology. He said: “Computer technology has just changed everything about what kids are interested in.

People are interested in things that don’t take much effort, so the idea of sitting and playing an hour a day to learn piano is not what kids want to do.” Dennis Saphir recently closed his piano shop in Chicago bringing a business that had been run by his family for six generations to an end. “We actually found ourselves competing with our own pianos that came back on the market and, frankly, nothing was wrong with those pianos," said Saphir. "We had serviced them and made sure customers took care of those pianos. There were lots of really excellent pianos on the market for a fraction of what the new piano would cost.” The decline in popularity in the US is in stark contrast with the ever-increasing popularity of the piano in China, where more than 40 million children have been inspired to take up the instrument – in a trend labelled 'the Lang Lang effect'. But a note of optimism was struck by Joe Lamond, president and CEO of the National Association of Music Merchants, who said: "Having all the notes laid out in front of you spatially is really an important way to learn music. It's why [the piano] is one of the most important instruments for people to begin on.

That's not going to change." Photo: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

Question: Which musical instrument is associated with Lang Lang?
Answer: Piano